Climategate scientists were 'defensive, not dishonest'

Paola Totaro

THE scientists involved in the so-called Climategate scandal were ''unhelpful'' and failed consistently to be open about their data, but the ''rigour and honesty'' of their work and its conclusions are not in doubt, an inquiry has found.

The report into the scandal, by British civil servant Sir Muir Russell, concluded that the ''defensive'' nature of the scientists in response to freedom of information requests contributed to accusations that they fudged the results.

However, the scientists did not subvert the peer review processes, and nor did they censor the findings of their rivals or critics. Most of the data at the heart of the controversy was available to any ''competent'' researcher, the report concluded.

The scandal erupted in November, one month before the Copenhagen summit, when thousands of emails belonging to scientists from the University of East Anglia's climate research unit were leaked and published online.

The correspondence, much of it between Phil Jones, the unit head, and specialists in Britain and the US, appeared to show an attempt to cover up inconsistencies in global warming data and stymie attempts to publish critical papers in peer-reviewed journals.

The scientists were caught in a barrage of often vexatious freedom of information requests by climate sceptics bent on casting doubt on their findings for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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Sir Muir's report, published in Britain overnight, concluded that the inquiry had to focus on ''what they [the scientists] did, not what they said''.

''The honesty and rigour of [the climate research unit] as scientists are not in doubt … We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments,'' the report found.

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Sir Muir made recommendations and observations about the need for transparency of data in climate science and an acknowledgment of its limits and the level of doubt about conclusions.

''Climate science is an area that exemplifies the importance of ensuring that policy makers - particularly governments and their advisers, non-governmental organisations and other lobbyists - understand the limits on what scientists can say and with what degree of confidence.

''Statistical and other techniques for explaining uncertainty have developed greatly in recent years, and it is essential that they are properly deployed.

''But equally important is the need for alternative viewpoints to be recognised in policy presentations, with a robust assessment of their validity, and for the challenges to be rooted in science rather than rhetoric.''

The review is the final of three investigations into the scandal and effectively clears Dr Jones and his senior colleagues of the most serious charges. But the report passes comment on how they responded to freedom of information requests and how the university as well as its scientists deal with criticism in the scientific arena and the blogosphere.

It also found fault with the way the scientists labelled a 1999 graph prepared for the World Meteorological Organisation in which Dr Jones was accused of using a ''trick'' to hide an inconsistency in data that showed a decline in temperatures.

The report described that result as misleading, although it was not deliberate as several caveats had indeed been included in the report's text.

"We do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of [climate research unit] scientists and on the part of the [University of East Anglia]," the report concluded.